What Hits the Hardest
by The Fuzy Llama
Summary: Hermione learns terrible news and finds her whole world shaken. Surprisingly, or perhaps, oh, too predictably, Draco Malfoy is the most convenient punching bag.


I had this posted a looooong while back, attempting to make it a chapter story. After five chapters and realizing I was turning the story into something it wasn't, I withdrew the story and counted my losses. However, moving boldly into the future, I have decided that this story still can stand as a one-shot. I had elaborate and overly emo-rrific plot with a potential Harry/Hermione/Draco angsty love triangle in my plans, but that was, as I said looooong ago. (Had to count the o's there, for accuracy.) Anyway, there's a chance for a story in the future, but for now, it shall remain complete as it is.

**Disclaimer**: Harry Potter and all associated characters and plots are not mine, have never been mine, and will continue to not be mine in the future.

What Hits the Hardest

Boiling. That was the best word to describe this girl as she stormed up the steps, her robes and brown mane of hair billowing behind her. The girl's breath came fast, and the fire of the hovering candles that lit her way was reflected in her eyes to a frightening intensity. Her fury was flashing in her burning gaze.

After turning two corners, with legs wobbly from exertion, she somehow still had the energy to fight her way up the moving staircase that had swung conveniently in her path.

At the top of the stairs, several portraits entered her line of vision, though only one was deemed important- a portrait of a plump middle-aged woman, seemingly sleeping, slumped against the Baroque-styled wood frame of the painting. In no time at all, the girl was impatiently banging her fist against the frame growling, "Wake up! Blue sphinx gizzards! Let me in!"

Grudgingly, the woman in the painting aroused with a glare and opened the secret passage her portrait hid, only to be slammed around her hinges into the painting beside hers. Neglecting to offer either thanks or apologies, the girl jammed the entrance shut again and huffed up the stairs, totally ignoring the threats and reprimands of the two portraits in question.

A fire (obviously the work of house elves) roared in the fireplace of the Gryffindor common room where three familiar armchairs lay bathed in golden light. The bushy-haired witch saw them but gave them no consideration as she glanced around the room for a sign of red or black hair. Finding none, she breathed a sigh of relief… or would have had she not been running across the room and up the stairs to the safety of her dorm room.

This girl was still very much boiling, and like a pot threatening to overflow, tears gathered about her eyes, blurring her vision. Wasting no time, she leapt into bed, tugging the crimson curtains around her to shield from prying eyes. Gasping for breath, Hermione Granger burrowed her head into a fluffy gold pillow and cried.

_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_

It was in Charms class that Hermione was called away for important news. Professor Dumbledore himself asked to have a word with her.

As Hermione matched the headmaster's brisk pace, a sense of dread washed over her. What if the Order of the Phoenix had a mission for her? After last year… but she wasn't going to let the events of last year stop her. The Order wasn't responsible for what happened, anyway.

Hermione shook her head with determination. There was nothing she could have done to prevent what happened, she convinced herself, doing her best to forget the pained look that came into Harry's eyes occasionally that he tried so hard to hide.

Still, she had to move on. That's what the Order of the Phoenix was about, right? Even after you have burned, you spread your wings and rise from the ashes to begin anew. Hermione found herself very comforted by that.

In no time at all, Hermione was in Dumbledore's office. "Miss Granger," the headmaster began without the usual twinkle in his eyes, "would you like a lemon drop?"

"No, thank you, Professor," she replied.

"Are you sure?" he inquired again, something that rarely occurred.

"No, that's okay, Professor. I'm fine." Dumbledore placed the lemon drops on the corner of his desk.

"Very well, then. You may want to sit down for this." He motioned to a chair. She plopped herself in the red, leather armchair and waited for the headmaster to continue.

"As of 1:40 P.M. today, your parents are dead due to an automobile accident."

"What?" she asked timidly with disbelieving eyes. Maybe she had heard wrong.

Maybe it was a trick, or a joke, or maybe it wasn't really true? No. Dumbledore wouldn't lie about something like this. The blood drained from Hermione's face.

"Your parents are dead," he repeated softly. Any lofty ideals of phoenixes were far, far away now. (Creep under a rock? Yes, that would be very nice.)

"Professor…?" Hermione asked with a voice only slightly cracking, "I really would like a lemon drop." Dumbledore nodded stoically as Hermione grabbed a candy and tore the wrapper off the sticky, yellow glob of processed sugar. While popping the lemon drop in her mouth, she held the candy wrapper in a clenched fist.

Dumbledore proceeded to tell her that she was excused for that day and for the next three days to attend her parent's funeral. The train would leave tomorrow at seven. However, Hermione could barely hear him due to the chorus that rang in her head… My parents are dead. My parents are dead…

For the most part, Hermione spent the rest of her day pacing her dormitory, weeding through Hogwarts a History, and doing homework. A good portion of the night was spent shifting positions in bed. Just when she thought she was free, out bursted the horrid refrain again with new abandon. It even had its own beat. Thump, _thump_, thump, _thump._Tick tock, tick tock. My parents are dead. My parents are dead. Not even her footsteps as she paced around the room had offered any sort of safe haven.

At long last, Hermione untangled herself from her sheets and headed down to the library. She may have been excused from prefect duty that night, but she was still allowed to go about the school (hopefully).

She extended the life of her lumos spell to one hour as she searched the bookshelves for a promising-looking book she hadn't read yet. Finally her eyes settled on _Dragon Hunts of the Twelfth Century_. Deciding to give it a shot, she settled into a wooden chair and immersed herself in tales of knights in shining armor.

For a long while she sat like that, pouring over the book with determined fervor until tiredness made the text in front of her blur before her eyes. She jumped a little as her wand went out.

Pitch black darkness engulfed her. While reading, she had almost forgotten this feeling, this sense of emptiness and loneliness that now pounded her like a ton of bricks.

Everything she had was gone now, totally and completely. She had no parents to come home to each holiday or to share memories with or even tuition to continue attending Hogwarts. She had tried to avoid thinking about it, to force everything she ever felt to the back of her mind. Still, no matter how hard she tried to keep her composure, she knew that her parents weren't there. It wasn't only that they were dead as her mind kept telling her but that they were gone, and they were never coming back. They really were never coming back.

Harry would have readily warned her that numbing the pain for a while only makes it worse, but of course she hadn't said anything to Ron or Harry; she'd made up an accuse about Dumbledore asking her to do a side project for honors credit. Where was that good old Gryffindor courage? It probably died. Here she was, alone and shivering in the dark.

'So,' she thought to herself, 'this is what it feels like to be Harry Potter, an orphan without any parents or a real home to turn to.'

_No_, said the little voice in her head, _this is what it feels like to be Hermione Granger. Get used to it. _

All of a sudden, the book she held to her face was pulled flat on the table, and a wand lit up that wasn't hers. As usual, Draco Malfoy had picked the perfect moment to ruin her life. She watched the corners of his lips turn up in recognition. "Are you crying, Mudblood?" he asked, his voice dripping with mock concern.

She glared at him and was about to wipe the wetness off her cheeks when there was a click and a bright flash of light. Hermione saw the name 'Colin Creevy' etched in yellow plastic before her eyes zeroed in on Draco's smirking face.

Malfoy waved the obviously stolen camera in front of her saying, "Now, now, that didn't hurt at all, did it?" sounding for all the world like a dentist. Her parents were dentists.

The words of this slinking, cold-blooded Slytherin had somehow turned her last shreds of logic and dignity to flames, like dry tinder in the fireplace… or, rather, like floo powder. The floo network was a system of travelling through fire to reach a specified location. Just like traveling through the floo network, Hermione was going somewhere… Oh, was she going somewhere, but this time she didn't try to stop herself. He was going to pay.

She had seen many things during this first year as a prefect: stink bombs thrown in her face as little hoodlums ran to escape detention, couples snogging in empty classrooms (she wouldn't have caught them if they hadn't been so… loud), and even other prefects breaking rules!

There had to be a line somewhere called the breaking point that every little boy and girl could be pushed over once or twice if they weren't careful (although, in her case it really was too late for that). Of course, Hermione wasn't any ordinary little girl; she was a witch, and that made everything better… much better, she thought to herself.

She felt her own lips turning up at the corners. She beamed a perfect, prefect smile at Malfoy, becoming even more… elated? as he visibly took a step back with fear in his eyes. No, that wasn't the right word… or maybe there wasn't a right word; it didn't matter, anymore. Forget the rules.

Hermione could feel warmth gathering at the tip of the wand she'd put back in her cloak. It was magic gathering in her wand; it _wanted_to be used. Judging by Hermione's nearly perfect grade point average, she wasn't one to disappoint. That's good because Malfoy was going somewhere, too… a world of hurt. She whipped out her wand.

She hurled spell after spell at him in rapid fire, almost as if she had memorized the whole list in advance- a list that would be titled something along the lines of "This is what I would do if someone _really_ got on my nerves."

Draco couldn't do much more than defend against her string of curses, which ranged from covering him with bat buggers to causing painful hangnails to turning his hair neon green. No killing curses and nothing against the law, but enough to do some serious damage to a person's mental state.

Most curses were effectively dodged or blocked with shielding spells, but Hermione did manage to land a nasty spell for facial acne. She knew that if he didn't find some kind of treatment fast, for the next few days his face would be one big, inflamed ball of pus-filled pain.

By the end of the list, most of her anger was dissipated. Once again, her throat was constricting and she felt like crying. "What is with you today, Granger?" Draco finally asked, the one question that no one had asked. No one had even thought to ask. She'd thought up a quick excuse, and everyone, even Ron and Harry, had believed her story. No one had even realized there was anything wrong.

"My parents are dead," she told him.

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she hated how weak she sounded. Her voice had cracked. Surely he was going to laugh. Surely by noon tomorrow everyone in school would know about her parents. She hated this- hated everyone! She hated how she knew all the shallow, air-headed girls who had never even known her parents would be offering their condolences as if she was a poor little lamb, how the all teachers (except Snape) would look at her with sad eyes and want to put a hand on her shoulder. Most of all, she hated that that stuck up, prissy, idiotic ferret had the gall to look guilty.

If she stayed in that room for one moment longer, she knew that she would cry, and no way on earth was she going to stay and cry in front of Draco Malfoy. She ran from the room.

_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_

After a good cry, Hermione had gained enough composure to realize she was sweating like mad. She wrestled her robes off without much trouble. Vaguely, she wondered if the creator of these uniforms intended to cause heat strokes for the students who would later wear them. "Hmph," she whispered to herself, "After all this, I still have a sense of humor." Hermione's lips formed a half smile as two silver tears snaked their way down her cheeks.

* * *

The next day, Hermione left on the train at seven o'clock as scheduled. Just like any ordinary day most students gathered in the great hall to attend breakfast. At the Slytherin table, Pansy Parkinson was prattering to Draco on and on as usual about the minutia of her day and the latest gossip. "Shut up, Pansy," Draco finally spat at her. "I'm not in the mood for it today."

Pansy huffed. "Aw, come on, Draco," she said, pouting. "You're no fun."

Draco sniffed and stared up contemptuously at the ceiling of the great hall. The ceiling mimicked the appearance of the sky outside, and today the sky was blue and full of big, fluffy, cumulous clouds.

It turned out that Hermione's pimple spell was strong. Draco had managed to get rid of it only with the use of a certain countercharm of the school nurse's creation, one that's side affect list included a very runny nose. Obviously, Draco wasn't gazing up at the blue sky of the great hall ceiling for just one purpose. He didn't want to have to wipe his nose. Malfoys _never_wipe their noses in public. He had to give her credit for this one. Just like that mudblood, he thought, to always know how to hit him hardest.

* * *

AN: Just a quick Q&A without the Q-

Yes, I took a whole lot of liberties with the use of the Lumos. We could say she was using a time-limited Lumos that was designed to conserve magic so that she wouldn't wear herself out. That sounds pretty reasonable. Obviously.

Yes, it has been years since I've last posted a story, and this one goes back a good four years. Reposted (sort of) at the request of a friend.

Emo-rrific is a combination of emo, horrific, and terrific, thought up on the spot. Take that as you will (but preferably without a dictionary in hand).

Yes, I can translate your review if you post in German. (I know you weren't going to ask that, but I'm in my second semester of German and I desperately need the practice. Even feel free to use google translator. Surprise me. ^_^)

Thank you everyone who took the time to read through this story and my silly comments!! I really do appreciate it! XD


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